skirtcafe.org

It would be good if pants were sold with four measurements - waist, hips, torso length (distance from the crotch to the top of the pants, and inseam and marketed for both genders.

Likewise it would be good if dresses were sold with the chest (bust), waist, hips, and length measurements without regard to gender.

After all, why should men be restricted to coats and ties for formal wear and have to forgo makeup, not to mention the extremely restricted choice of shoes?

John

I completely agree with all the above from crfriend.
The reason for my wanting purely linguistic definitions of the two terms in question is so that I can understand myself, shake off the fear with which I have lived all of my 59 years and get down to enjoying who I am and the rest of my life

The pub awaits

Derek

Ron wrote:

Derek Plattis wrote: I'm off out to a pub in a full length green suede effect skirt tonight - and I shall be nervous at first but expect to relax and unwind there as the evening goes on.

Happy skirting!

Derek

a full length green suede effect skirt sounds like a skirt that I would like to have.
were did you get it?

The skirt came from a local charity shop, as do all my skirts and blouses etc.

Derek

Derek Plattis wrote:

Ron wrote:

Derek Plattis wrote: I'm off out to a pub in a full length green suede effect skirt tonight - and I shall be nervous at first but expect to relax and unwind there as the evening goes on.

Happy skirting!

Derek

a full length green suede effect skirt sounds like a skirt that I would like to have.
were did you get it?

The skirt came from a local charity shop, as do all my skirts and blouses etc.

Derek

Ok,I was just wondering if it was something that could be found somewhere.

Derek Plattis wrote:I completely agree with all the above from crfriend.

Just so it's not misconstrued, I was not trying to "beat Derek into submission", but rather to provide an argument for thought that the mere existence of the terms are largely obsolete and, as used in "modern" parlance, inherently disadvantage one sex from the other.

The reason for my wanting purely linguistic definitions of the two terms in question is so that I can understand myself, shake off the fear with which I have lived all of my 59 years and get down to enjoying who I am and the rest of my life.

Linguistically, the two terms are interchangeable and there may be some argument which preceded the other. Commonly, the term "crossdressing" is used although my 1971 copy of Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary does not have an entry for the term. This does not mean that it wasn't in common use then, it only means that the entry does not appear. The "Latinate" version, "transvestism", does exist, however, and it's called out thusly (and I will quote):

trans-vest-ism n [G transvestimus, fr. L trans + vestire to clothe -- more at VEST]: adoption of the dress and often behavior of the opposite sex -- trans-ves-tite adj or n

One interesting thing about the dictionary definition above is that it is sex-blind. Unfortunately, local culture isn't, nor does local culture currently regard the sexes as equals. The other interesting feature of the definition is the inclusion of "and often behavior", which, it may seem, goes in both directions.

Women have been dressing in trousers for a good many years, and the first examples were quite "butch" indeed as those were simply gotten from the rack in the menswear section. Things have evolved now to a point where women's trousers are different from the men's variety, mainly in cut and fabric choice; a more interesting observation may be the increased level of what might as well be called "testosterone-fuelled" bevaviour that is now visible in women -- outright aggressiveness and sometimes overt violence. Does this play into the equation? I honestly don't know, and I'll leave that to the (soft-science) realm of sociology to contemplate.

On a personal note, it was interesting to "back-time" 40-odd years to read the verbatim 1971 definition, and it was oddly refreshing to not see it defined as "a man who dresses in women's clothes" which is what it culturally means today. I do not have a new dictionary on hand; there are but a few "new" words that I find useful, and I've already "appropriated" those even if they're not in my primary guidebook. (A sad part of this is that my family had a complete and unabridged dictionary dating to the early part of the 20th century in their library, and that has been lost.)

So, Derek, there's your linguistic definition -- and it's nicely discrete from the one that's in common use. As they say, "Pick your poison."

The upshot remains, though, and that's that if we're to achieve a more rational, more equal world we need to abandon the common usage of the terms -- even if the dictionary definitions remain neutral. Continuing to use the terms as used in the current climate amounts to preserving apparel apartheid.

The pub awaits

Enjoy! (That is if you're not already.)

I have to agree with Carl here on use of words, especially given my 1989 (widely held most authoritative) dictionary's more perjorative, though still sex-blind, definition:

Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition wrote:Transvestite:

A. A person with an abnormal desire to wear the clothes of the opposite sex.

B. Of ore pertaining to transvestism or transvestites; of a person: who wears the clothes of the opposite sex.

And even transvestism:

Transvestism:
The action of dressing in the clothes of the opposite sex; the condition of having an abnormal desire to dress in the clothes of the opposite sex.

It does seem that even by 1989 (well probably a year or so earlier) cross-dressing had not achieved sufficient documented currency to satisfy the compilers of the OED that it was a word worth including in their dictionary.

In my mind, there is a world of difference between those who wear clothes from the opposite side of the aisle because they come from the opposite side of the aisle, and those who do so in spite of their coming from the opposite side of the aisle. If I'm not much mistaken, the nearly all of us here are in the latter category, for what the categories are worth. According to the OED definition, perhaps none of us are really transvestites, because (I suspect, and can say for myself that) we probably would never have bothered to look across the aisle had unbifurcated wear, and some "finer" fabrics and clothes been readily available in the men's department.

Sorry to hear about the loss of the dictionary, Carl. I know I can enjoyably spend quite a bit of time just reading a dictionary - for which purpose a paper copy is essential. Old dictionaries often seem to have things of interest that have been lost in modern ones.

Tor wrote:It does seem that even by 1989 (well probably a year or so earlier) cross-dressing had not achieved sufficient documented currency to satisfy the compilers of the OED that it was a word worth including in their dictionary.

Alright, now that datum is very interesting indeed. From my 1971 US-printed tome to your 1989 version of the OED (which is widely recognized as the canonical source) the notion garnered the additional comment of "abnormal". The inquisitive type in me is tempted to put out a call to the community to find their dictionaries, state the publisher and date, and quote -- verbatim -- the entry for the word(s). (I quietly hold out hope that somebody has got a dust-covered one from the century-before-last that may have neither term in it!)

So, from 1971 to 1989 the notion went from simple commentary to an abnormality (with all the baggage that that carries). What happened?

In my mind, there is a world of difference between those who wear clothes from the opposite side of the aisle because they come from the opposite side of the aisle, and those who do so in spite of their coming from the opposite side of the aisle.

I took the liberty of highlighting the differences there, simply so they'll be abundantly apparent, and this may form the crux of what seems to be an ongoing low-level conflict here in the community and higher-energy one in the general population.

I can relate to the "because" faction as that was a driver in my testosterone-driven teens and 20s. Yep, I'll admit it, I got a heck of a charge out of the notion. ('Nuff said.) But, there was always an undercurrent in play that made me resent the very boring options offered to the guys, and I suffered horribly with the contraction of same during the 1980s which made me rather envious of the freedoms "of the other side of the aisle" -- and this lead eventually to the "in spite of" faction which is where I am firmly entrenched today. The transition took two decades and change, during which time the entire idea of wearing anything other than that what was expected of me was rejected pretty much out-of-hand.

So, what happened to "turn me"? I'd been disgusted with menswear as a whole -- at least at the price-range accessible to me -- for a while, and this took a very noticeable toll on my wardrobe. Sapphire terms my "look" then as "dumpster chic" and she nails it right on the head. I was so unenthusiastic that I simply gave up; if the thing didn't fall off me, then it was OK. Somehow I managed to further my career during this unfortunate time, and outside my talents I have no clue how; common-sense would have indicated otherwise. (I owe deep debts of gratitude to folks who hired me during that time, some of whom I cannot thank as they're dead, as they took massive risks in doing so.) Yes, it was that bad. Yep, "shirt, pants, socks, and shoes" -- day after day after day after day. No wonder guys give up.

My first skirt entered the scene sometime in 2002 if memory serves, and from a simple home-built one -- and some temporary angst with Sapphire -- it fairly quickly got to where I cared what I looked like, and took steps to get there. Clothing became interesting and worthy of attention rather than the standard uniform. When that happened, both of us "won"; I found a new way to express myself and she got a better-looking -- and happier -- husband!

I've rambled. Please accept my humble apologies.

If I'm not much mistaken, the nearly all of us here are in the latter category, for what the categories are worth. According to the OED definition, perhaps none of us are really transvestites, because (I suspect, and can say for myself that) we probably would never have bothered to look across the aisle had unbifurcated wear, and some "finer" fabrics and clothes been readily available in the men's department.

I suspect very much that this is the case. Had the "box" not contracted as violently as it did in the 1980s many of us never would have sought this path. That said, there was a quiet voice deep within me that always asked the question, "Why two pipes for two (or three) legs?"

Sorry to hear about the loss of the dictionary, Carl. I know I can enjoyably spend quite a bit of time just reading a dictionary - for which purpose a paper copy is essential. Old dictionaries often seem to have things of interest that have been lost in modern ones.

Thanks for the sentiment, Tor, but these things happen -- and they tend to happen during times of intense stress. I'm not sure of the precise time of loss, but it was likely in the middle of when both my grandparents were failing or when my father finally had his terminal event that caused the loss of the old family home.

crfriend wrote:The inquisitive type in me is tempted to put out a call to the community to find their dictionaries, state the publisher and date, and quote -- verbatim -- the entry for the word(s).

I'm just curious enough to bite on that an pull out my American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, copyright 1969, with further copyrights to 1973. In C, it goes from (no surprise now) to crosscut to crosse.

American Heritage DOtEL wrote:Transvestite: One who experiences transvestism.

However:

Transvestism, also Transvestitism: 1. The abnormal desire to dress in the clothing of the opposite sex. 2. The act or state of being so dressed.

Hmmm... Seems the stigma can be referenced by dictionaries further back. I happened to note also that this dictionary includes under transsexual with both the desire and the physical alteration, though I'm not sure it's germane to this discussion.

Well, I'm interested enough to look further. Here is what my Concise OED, Eleventh edition, Second revision has to say on the subject:

Concise OED, 11th ed., 2nd rev. wrote:cross-dress: wear clothing typical of the opposite sex.

Simple, and probably innocuous enough. But looky here:

ibid. wrote:transvestite: a person, typically a man, who derives pleasure from dressing in clothes considered appropriate to the opposite sex.
Origin 1920s: from Ger. Transvestit, from L. trans- 'across' + vestire 'clothes'

Huh? What do they mean by pleasure? Seems that word could have a host of meanings, from the pleasure of comfortable clothes (which might encompass all of us) to a more specific, almost euphemistic meaning that probably excludes most of us.

And no longer sex-blind, either. Boo! Hiss!

crfriend wrote:I took the liberty of highlighting the differences there, simply so they'll be abundantly apparent, and this may form the crux of what seems to be an ongoing low-level conflict here in the community and higher-energy one in the general population.

...snip long text...

When that happened, both of us "won"; I found a new way to express myself and she got a better-looking -- and happier -- husband!

I've rambled. Please accept my humble apologies.

No need to apologize. It probably helps quite a few people, especially coming from one who has made the jump so far and so successfully. I can certainly relate to wearing things out through laziness in replacement, though I suspect there may also be a bit of the saying from my heritage "Use it up, wear it out, make it do.", which I suspect you at least will recognize, coming (I believe) as it does from your part of the globe, or at least your part being often recognized as an exemplary follower thereof.

As for the pipe count question, I'm sure that some would not have been led to consider it with a broader palette of conventionally recognized options, but then again, with a broader starting palette, maybe the jump to one pipe might be perceived less an issue than it is now. We may never know for certain, though.

Tor wrote:

Concise OED, 11th ed., 2nd rev. wrote:cross-dress: wear clothing typical of the opposite sex.

Simple, and probably innocuous enough. But looky here:

ibid. wrote:transvestite: a person, typically a man, who derives pleasure from dressing in clothes considered appropriate to the opposite sex.
Origin 1920s: from Ger. Transvestit, from L. trans- 'across' + vestire 'clothes'

Huh? What do they mean by pleasure? Seems that word could have a host of meanings, from the pleasure of comfortable clothes (which might encompass all of us) to a more specific, almost euphemistic meaning that probably excludes most of us.

And no longer sex-blind, either. Boo! Hiss!

The understanding I have of the genesis of the term "transvestism" is that it was a Latinised version of the slang-term "crossdressing" which was coined by somebody doing a college-level dissertation on psychology and needed a tarted-up term for the phenomenon. That it passed through German first doesn't surprise me in the least, nor does the time-frame of the 1920s as that was where a lot of very early (and very badly flawed) work on psychology was being done.

Historically, dictionaries are loath to include slang terms, so that may explain the lack of "cross-dress"; "transvestism" on the other hand somehow smacks of legitimacy even though it's precisely the same term transliterated (hmm, there's that term "trans" again) into an "elder tongue".

I don't know the time-frame for the OED quote above, but the fact that it's not sex-blind I find interesting, and I now wonder if the guy doing his psych paper in the 1920s was specifically targeting men or not as women had not migrated, en masse, into trousers at the time whereas men's fashions in the '20s were pretty much the same as they are now save that they've been dumbed down rather massively.

As for the pipe count question, I'm sure that some would not have been led to consider it with a broader palette of conventionally recognized options, but then again, with a broader starting palette, maybe the jump to one pipe might be perceived less an issue than it is now. We may never know for certain, though.

For me, the jump to "one pipe" brought a starting palette that was almost mind-boggling in its scope -- and in a most welcoming way, too, I'll add. The number of options I have on the table now are huge. Sure, some will look outlandish and I'll shy away from those, but more will work -- and some will work well indeed -- than would work with the two-pipe garment. I'm happy with my choice.

Thank you all for this learned conversation.

If we are busy defining words we must also define "normal". Do we mean merely statistically more prevalent - in which case any man in women's clothes is decidedly abnormal - even if we accept the popularly suggested 1 in 10. Or, are we back in the business of attaching or removing stigma to or from the words - in which case we are all normal. All I can say with any accuracy is that wearing skirts is fast becoming more normal for me.

Thanks again

Derek

Derek Plattis wrote:If we are busy defining words we must also define "normal".

It depends on which "definition" of the word "normal" one wishes to use. There's the scientific and mathematical one which represents the mean of a system (pick a system, any system), and there's the common cultural use of the term which can be surprisingly different.

Do we mean merely statistically more prevalent - in which case any man in women's clothes is decidedly abnormal - even if we accept the popularly suggested 1 in 10.

Let's take a world in which 100% of the women wear skirted garments and 100% of the men wear trousers -- no variance is tolerated. Certainly, in that case, a bloke in a skirt is decidedly off-normal (term used deliberately to avoid the assorted connotation of "abnormal") for the male population -- but, when the population as a whole is viewed as people it's more or less of an even break who's got a skirt on and who has trousers. So, with a roughly even split "normal" could be construed as either wearing trousers or wearing a skirt, and what, then, would the occasional bloke count for? (Looking at the local mass of humanity here, skirts in general are getting rare enough so anybody wearing one is deviating (in the analytical sense) from the norm, guys just more so. So what.) Picking the sample on which to base one's numbers is critical -- and one of the easiest ways to tell blatant lies with statistics.

Or, are we back in the business of attaching or removing stigma to or from the words - in which case we are all normal. All I can say with any accuracy is that wearing skirts is fast becoming more normal for me.

Like it or not, we're not going to be able to "unload" the connotations of "normal" and "abnormal" (Why do I get the image of Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein going, "Abby someone."?) from the daily societal use of the word. It's just not going to happen; those are loaded words and will remain so. As I observed above, I cannot wear a skirt in public and point to the general population and say, "Look at all these people. How many are in skirts and how many in trousers? What makes me worthy of ridicule?" There have been more times than I can count that I've been the only person in a room who wasn't wearing trousers!

I believe I explored this before, but imagine the typical "bell curve" when it comes to population analysis and superimpose it on clothing styles. The gals have access to the full curve from the very "masculine" at one end to the extremely "feminine" at the other. The "norm" in this case is roughly in the center with varying deviations from in either direction -- very few women go dramatically "butch" just as very few go overtly "feminine". Unfortunately -- or perhaps tellingly -- the curve for guys is 1/2 of that bell and eliminates the "feminine" aspect entirely. The "top" of both curves represents jeans and t-shirts which are universal garments; "left" on the gals' curve represents skirts and dresses in various forms, and "right" on both curves represents varying degrees of formality and "power dressing" (There is no "left" part of the curve for guys). In this sense, we completely shatter the common perception of things, which means we'd better be good at it and present a compelling image to observers. We're not just several standard-deviations from the middle of the curve, where we are there is no curve. We're trying to shift the entire curve for guys, or at least expand the plotting area. It'll happen eventually, but it's going to happen one guy at a time who realizes that "here NOT be dragons" when he gets off the beaten path of (what passes for) "male 'fashion'".

Sorry for such a long post with so little of my own words, but I think it is appropriate to the discussion at hand.

crfriend wrote:I don't know the time-frame for the OED quote above, but the fact that it's not sex-blind I find interesting, and I now wonder if the guy doing his psych paper in the 1920s was specifically targeting men or not as women had not migrated, en masse, into trousers at the time whereas men's fashions in the '20s were pretty much the same as they are now save that they've been dumbed down rather massively.

The sexist definition appeared sometime between 1989 when the OED second edition was compiled and 2008 when the Concise eleventh second revision was compiled. As I gave first, the complete OED in 1989 had a completely sex-blind definition, as far as primary definition, at least. Now to look up the complete quote from the OED second edition:

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition wrote:transvestism: The action of dressing in the clothes of the opposite sex; the condition of having an abnormal desire to dress in the clothes of the opposite sex.
1928 [see Eonism]. 1938 Spectator 2 Dec. 962/1 So unimportant is the sexual element that transvestism is common in many dance-forms [in Bali] and produces no feeling of embarrassment. 1959 Listner 2 July 31/2 The transvestism which is part of the witch/fairy tradition. 1977 E. J. Trimmer et al. Visual Dict. Sex (1978) xix. 199 The most common cases of transvestism are heterosexual men leading otherwise conventional sex lives.
[...snip hence transvestist & quotations]

transvestite: A. A person with an abnormal desire to wear the clothes of the opposite sex.
[1910 M Hirschfeld ([/i]title[/i]) Die Transvestiten.] 1922 J. van Teslaar tr. Stekel's Bi-sexual Love ii. 69 Among the transvestites (personifiers) we find the most pronounced examples of marked homosexuality and stressed bi-sexuality. 1937 [iHuman Biol.[/i] IX. 501 The transvestite must attempt to duplicate the behavior-pattern of his adopted sex. 1964 in W. H. Goodenough Explorations Cultural Anthropol. 490 The bate, male transvestites,..excelled women in butchering, tanning, and other domestic tasks. 1976 Smythies & Corbett Psychiatry xi. 211 Transvestites wear the clothing of the opposite sex to obtain sexual gratification.
B. adj. Of or pertaining to transvestism or transvestites; of a person: who wears the clothes of the opposite sex.
1925 A. L. Kroeber Handbk. Indians California xxxiii. 497 The transvestite sexual perverts recognized by all North American tribes. 1937 Human Biol. IX. 501 An almost senile singer, said to be the last person to know the transvestite initiation songs. 1957 Observer 29 Dec. 9/1 According to scholarship, the principal boy in our transvestite pantomimes is a Saturnalian hangover. 1971 Times 16 Sept. 12/6 He moves as a suburban schoolmaster between the male aggression of his classroom and the frou-frou of his transvestite boudoir.

Well, under Eonism, it goes back further, and least in a dictionary as complete as the OED. Here goes:

ibid. wrote:Eonism Also eonism. [f. the name of the Chevalier Charles d'Eon (1728-1810), a French adventurer who wore women's clothes: see -ISM.] Transvestism, esp. by a man. So 'Eonist, one who wears the clothes of the opposite sex.
1928 H. Ellis Studies Psycol. Sex VII. i. 10 It was clearly a typical case of what Hirschfeld later termed 'transvestism' and what I would call 'sexo-aesthetic inversion', or more simply, 'Eonism'. ibid. 12 The Eonist (though sometimes emphatically of the apparent sex) sometimes shows real physical approximations towards the opposite sex. (b]1970[/b] Times 5 Sept. 8/4 Today we can see that the Chevalier was an a-sexual transvestite. From his name Havelock Ellis coined the term eonism to describe this minor deviation.

Well, that's no mere few square inches of text on this screen, as it is in my book (and hopefully I've transcribed correctly). Interesting that, though there is a eponym of a man who lived two centuries ago, the first citation is nevertheless from the time period you mention. No mention (though to be expected in these brief quotations) of whether in the time period of d'Eon he was regarded with any form of derision (though I suppose probably for there have been notes available to Ellis. Possibly a subject for further investigation, though I think it is a trifle beyond my interest and time limit curve.

crfriend wrote:For me, the jump to "one pipe" brought a starting palette that was almost mind-boggling in its scope -- and in a most welcoming way, too, I'll add.

Indeed - and especially in the limited world that currently exists for men's "fashion". I was more starting to follow the what-if thread of "if men's fashion were a good deal broader, would there be less impetus to move from two pipes to one, or would that be canceled out (or even eclipsed) by a smaller jump in conventional perspective from two pipes to one?"

There are probably comments or specific plaudits I could give to your excellent second post but I can't seem to think of them right now.

I am amused in conversations, and it appears that at least some dictionaries perpeptuate this, which differentiate between "cross-dresser" and "transvestite". Do people no longer learn their Latin and Greek roots? How is "cross-dresser" syntactically any different from "trans" (cross) "vestite" (dresser)?

I'm on the fence about whether the term applies at all to freestylers. Technically, yes, we ARE wearing clothes typically designed for people of the opposite sex. And yet... culturally, transvestism/crossdressing/call-it-what-you-will carries with it the assumption that the wearer internalizes at least some amount of identity with the opposite sex, either while dressed or full time.

In the end I don't object if someone identifies me as a crossdresser ("You don't understand! You're all wrong!") but neither do I self-identify as such; I go with the longer but more accurate "man who prefers dresses to pants". If the subject of clothing comes up at all, of course. Unlike dyed-in-the-taffeta crossdressers, it's not something I really think about 24/7. Like any guy, I just grab whatever clothes pass the smell test and feel comfortable, then I forget about them the rest of the day. My thoughts are filled with work, gaming, food, family, church, music, whatever... Based entirely on personal observation from crossdressing forums, it seems as though most (but not all!) self-described transvestites are far more concerned with appearance than I am. That's a pretty low bar, though -- a drunk Balrog is more concerned with appearance than I am

Ralph wrote:I'm on the fence about whether the term applies at all to freestylers.

I also am in a similar place. On the whole, I think there is enough cultural baggage ascribed to the terms that few or none of us are truly properly described that way. I can agree with not being miffed if someone does identify me that way.

Ralph wrote:I am amused in conversations, and it appears that at least some dictionaries perpeptuate this, which differentiate between "cross-dresser" and "transvestite". Do people no longer learn their Latin and Greek roots? How is "cross-dresser" syntactically any different from "trans" (cross) "vestite" (dresser)?

I don't think Latin and Greek are even required to figure this out. Trans- is rather common - enough so that I believe any thinking person who ponders it for a moment will arrive at the correct answer. Vest we have as a word for a garment in modern English, and even the other uses bear some relation (if sometimes rather distant). I suspect the real reason is the same as the reason we can distinguish between Skirt and Shirt - etymologically identical, but for having taken two pathways to modern English.

Tor wrote:I don't think Latin and Greek are even required to figure this out. Trans- is rather common - enough so that I believe any thinking person who ponders it for a moment will arrive at the correct answer.

On the face of it, no, but actually having a grounding in those classical languages gives one a considerable leg up on most folk today.

Vest we have as a word for a garment in modern English, and even the other uses bear some relation (if sometimes rather distant).

Here we need to be really careful as the term is used quite differently even in various English-speaking cultures. For instance, "vest" in US English describes a formal or semi-formal sleeveless garment. That's a "waistcoat" in UK English (and, as a bit of an obsolete usage in US English) -- for the Brits, a "vest" is what Yanks would know as a "wifebeater" (an unfortunate term, but I'm sure it's that for a reason). This is why I use the older term "waistcoat" in my posts to describe some of my kit -- I don't want that confusion. Yes, it can make me sound pompous (as in "pompous ass"), but I'm willing to pay that price to get the clarity.

The same goes for the term "pants", and sometimes that difference can be used to provoke much hilarity in a crowd which knows both usages.